The Message to President Reagan After Assassination Attempt

Welcome to our weekly program, the Inside Story of Chabad in America through the Mindel Archives. Because of the unusual times that we are experiencing today — the pandemic, violence, politics — and next week is going to be the elections, I want to share with you a very important sicha that the Rebbe spoke in 1983, in honor of his birthday (Yom Huledet), and he asked Rabbi Mindel to translate it, and that it should be given to President Reagan then.

What I did yesterday — I was supposed to speak about the second part of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka, but we'll leave that for another time. So I thought that because of the elections I would like to share with you the talk that the Rebbe spoke, and what Rabbi Mindel translated. But I had to condense it because it's a lot of pages, so I wrote down yesterday just points (nekudos), and I'm going to read the points that I wrote of how Rabbi Mindel wrote to President Reagan. Although this was forty years ago, it's relevant for today — we are experiencing today similar challenges to what we had then with President Reagan.

So the Rebbe says — and this is the first point — first of all, he's grateful for G-d's blessing on his birthday; a person should reciprocate by doing good deeds to Heaven and to man. And the Rebbe said that he appreciates President Reagan for his greeting and blessing on the occasion of his birthday. Especially it's meaningful for the Rebbe because he [President Reagan] went through [unclear] — there was the problem when he was shot, when people wanted to assassinate him. So it's very dramatic; he thanks him very much for that.

Now, the President of the United States is chosen by the people. Those in the minority who did not vote for President Reagan — Rabbi Mindel writes here that they can disagree and they can criticize, but in a proper way, in a peaceful way. And the shocking violence that we witnessed, the attempt on the president's life, has no place in human society. Now, why did it happen, and what can we do so that it shouldn't happen again? And we see that today more or less the same thing is happening with our president. What makes a young American, born and bred in a free, democratic country, do this violent behavior?

So the answer to this question was given by the establishment, the so-called experts — the Rebbe writes that these so-called experts have been in style for decades and have been proven wrong, in points A and B. That's what Rabbi Mindel writes, and I condensed what he wrote.

So, the criminal is mentally imbalanced, crazy — they say. The Rebbe says that he was not crazy, but the establishment says that he was imbalanced, that he probably has a corrupt mind. What we need to ask is: what corrupted his mind, and what crazy ideas was he fed? That's number one.

Number two: he suffers from poverty, the establishment said. But no — this young man did not suffer from any poverty; he comes from a wealthy home, not a poor home. The theory that poverty is connected to violence and crime has been in style for a long time, and it uses poverty as a convenient excuse for committing crimes and for not holding the criminal responsible for his anti-social behavior. But this view is wrong — there is no cause and effect between poverty and crime. On the contrary, as the Torah says [unclear], we should be especially considerate of the children of the poor, because from their ranks come the bearers of scholarship [Torah]. Very often we see that the economically disadvantaged try to excel in the areas where they have no disadvantage — scholarship and moral conduct. Poverty motivates them. Experience has shown this to be true. And we see this also now — Ben Carson, who was running for president, is one of the biggest doctors, and he said that he came from a poor family. So we see that it's not because of poverty; look what he became — he became one of the biggest doctors.

Moral breakdown of society — yes, this is the key to violent crime. Now, the blame for the moral breakdown of society that leads to violence is traced directly to the lack of quality education. What went wrong with education? This is what the Rebbe was addressing. And again, I just put down the points of what Rabbi Mindel wrote; he went into it a little bit more. Over the recent decades, education in the United States has mainly been about teaching knowledge — academics — and not about teaching values to build character. There is also a letter from the Rebbe to somebody about [unclear — "yeshivas"], saying that their behavior is because they have to be taught character, not only knowledge. But this applies not only to them — it's relevant to the whole world.

In earlier times, the training of character, moral and ethical behavior, was done primarily in the home and in church, so there was not so much need to be taught in school — this was years ago. But today, sadly, he writes that this is not the case. Parents themselves are the product of a spirit of permissiveness, so-called liberalism, and they have given up their responsibility of character training for their children. So, are schools teaching character and good citizenship? The Rebbe says: no, not as they should. The school has been restricted in the moral influence it can have on the children by twisting the principle of separation between church and state to mean that you take G-d totally out of the public domain. Without the Creator as the foundation of human conduct, there can be no moral and ethical behavior — it cannot be done through man-made rules alone. Children must be taught, the Rebbe said, that there is a Creator, a higher being who cares about each of us, about everything we say and do, and supervises our every word and action — that there is always an eye that sees and an ear that hears, and that we will need to give an account for what we do.

So, reflecting on the recent attempt on the president's life, the Rebbe writes: we must come to the obvious conclusion that there was something wrong with the education of the would-be assassin. There was something wrong with him; otherwise he wouldn't do what he did. But he went to school — so what happened? He received a typical education, yet he cold-bloodedly committed a violent crime. So obviously we need to conclude that education did not do what it was meant to do — to produce a decent human being, a member of a wholesome society. Such violence has unfortunately become a common, daily occurrence that no longer seems to shock the public, but we need to be shocked and remain shocked, so that our nation's conscience will be stirred to make changes in the public school system and teach morals, character building, and good citizenship in the right way — a G-d-centered education.

He blesses President Reagan — it is certain, this is how Rabbi Mindel put it, that after having been miraculously saved by Divine Providence, the president will dedicate himself more than ever to the mission Divine Providence has given him, both as President of the United States and as head of the leading superpower in the world. The president will certainly fulfill this aim: to weaken and eventually eradicate world terrorism, because terrorism has no place in the international community, and neither does domestic terrorism have a place in any decent society. We would like to see the president succeed in stopping the policy of world powers that threaten the free world by force and intimidation, and to do this without compromising the principles of justice.

This powerful message that the Rebbe gave almost forty years ago is relevant today — the same thing is happening. So these prophetic words that the Rebbe said to President Reagan [unclear] today, and the Rebbe's wish to see terrorism weakened and eventually wiped out was fulfilled by President Reagan, and it should be fulfilled today. So, since we are now before the election and many people are listening to this program, I would like to give a brachah — we should all give a brachah for our president, that he should win, that he should continue his good work, and before Moshiach we should see the fulfillment of the Sheva Mitzvos [the Seven Noahide Laws]. And next week I will continue with the second part of Rebbetzin Chaya Mushka. Thank you.